Igor Buketoff facts for kids
Igor Konstantin Buketoff (born May 29, 1915 – died September 7, 2001) was an American conductor, arranger, and teacher. He loved Russian music, especially the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff. He also strongly supported new music, particularly from Britain.
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About Igor Buketoff
Igor Buketoff was born in Hartford, Connecticut. His father was a Russian Orthodox priest. Igor often said he was "the last active conductor with pre-Revolutionary blood in his veins." This meant his family had roots in Russia before the big changes there.
Early Life and Rachmaninoff
Igor's father knew the famous composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. In 1927, Rachmaninoff asked Igor's father to gather a choir for the first performance of his Three Russian Folk Songs. This choir included deep-voiced singers from the Orthodox church. Young Igor went to the rehearsals. He learned that the conductor, Leopold Stokowski, had different ideas about how fast the last song should be played. Stokowski didn't follow Rachmaninoff's wishes.
Later, when Igor was at the Juilliard School, he decided to perform Rachmaninoff's Three Russian Folk Songs. Remembering the earlier problem, he asked the composer directly about the correct speed for the final song. He even made a professional recording of the piece. In 1940, he wrote an important article about Russian chant for a music book.
Education and Teaching Career
Igor Buketoff studied at the University of Kansas (1931-1932), the Juilliard School in New York (1935-1941), and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. He taught at both the Los Angeles Conservatory and Juilliard from 1935 to 1945. He also led the choir departments at Juilliard and Adelphi College.
He taught at Columbia University from 1941 to 1947. Later, he taught at Butler University (1953-1963) and the University of Houston (1977-1979).
Conducting and Awards
From 1941 to 1947, Buketoff was the Music Director of the Chautauqua Opera Association. In 1941, he won the first Ditson Conductor's Award. He conducted many orchestras across the United States. These included the New York Philharmonic for their Young People's Concerts (1948-1953), the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra (1948-1966). He won the Ditson Award again in 1967.
From 1964 to 1966, he was the conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He also conducted in many other countries.
Promoting New Music
In 1959, Buketoff created the World Music Bank. This organization helped share and promote new music from different countries. Countries would suggest their best new musical pieces. Today, this group is called the International Contemporary Music Exchange. It is managed by the International Rostrum of Composers.
From 1967 to 1970, he directed the Contemporary Composers Project for the Institute of International Education.
Premieres and Reconstructions
In 1971, Buketoff conducted the very first performance of Lee Hoiby's opera Summer and Smoke in Minnesota. With the same opera company, he also led the first U.S. performances of Carl Nielsen's Maskarade and Werner Egk's Betrothal in San Domingo.
At the request of conductor Eugene Ormandy, Buketoff recreated Tchaikovsky's famous 1812 Overture. He set the beginning part for a choir singing without instruments (called a cappella). This part sounded like a Russian Orthodox chant. He also added a choir to the ending section with the orchestra. He recorded this special version with the New Philharmonia Orchestra.
Igor Buketoff also helped complete an unfinished opera by Rachmaninoff called Monna Vanna. Rachmaninoff had only written the first act for piano. Buketoff added the orchestra parts for this act. The first concert performance was in 1984 with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also recorded this work with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
He also created a new version of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov. He removed many changes made by another composer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He also filled in some missing parts of Mussorgsky's original music. This version was first performed in New York in 1997.
Buketoff also made a version of Delius's opera A Village Romeo and Juliet with fewer instruments.
Later Life
The Los Angeles Conservatory gave Igor Buketoff an honorary doctorate degree. In his later years, he lived in Manhattan. He was a member of St. James' Episcopal Church (New York City). He passed away in the Bronx on September 7, 2001, at the age of 86. He was survived by his wife and daughter.
Notable Recordings
Igor Buketoff was known for choosing unusual music to record. Here are some examples of the diverse pieces he recorded:
- Jacob Avshalomov's The Taking of T'ung Kuan
- Sir Arnold Bax's Overture to a Picaresque Comedy (this was the very first recording of this piece)
- Sir Richard Rodney Bennett's Symphony No. 1
- Luboš Fišer's Fifteen Prints After Dürer's "Apocalypse"
- Works by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, including his Cuban Country Scenes opera and two symphonies. Many of these were first-time recordings.
- Peter Mennin's Piano Concerto
- Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 4 (the first recording of the 1927 version)
- Ferdinand Ries's Violin Concerto No. 1
- Roger Sessions' Symphony No. 3
- Vladimír Sommer's Vocal Symphony
- Robert Ward's Symphonies Nos. 3 and 6
